Description
The paper presents preliminary findings of pilot research on women’s unarmed protection strategies in the ethnic and political conflict in Northern Ethiopia. Doing so, the paper contributes to the gendered dimensions of UCP in Ethiopia which remains less understood and under-explored. In 2020, Ethiopia descended into violent political and ethnic conflict in its northern province, popularly known as the Tigray conflict. Described as one of the deadliest and forgotten armed conflicts in the 21st century, the Tigray conflict has claimed the lives of about 700,000 people, coupled with 100,000 women subjected to rape and hundreds of thousands internally displaced (New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, 2024; The Economist, 2024). Although the Tigray conflict officially ended in November 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement, sporadic violence continues to occur and the situation remains critically unsafe, especially for women. The rates of sexual violence, kidnappings and other atrocities continue. Yet, empirical research exploring grassroots nonviolent protection strategies women employ to protect themselves and fellow civilians in Ethiopia have been generally lacking. Drawing on feminist security studies and nonviolence theory, the paper presents new empirical insights into women’s protective agency demonstrating that, women are not passive recipients but active agents in their own protection
